Ghosting

by Jonathan Kemp

  ‘I feel fine, but I think I should go.’

  ‘Well, if you’re sure. Come back inside and I’ll call a cab. There’s a flat upstairs; you can wait there for it.’

  She follows him up an iron staircase on the outside of the building, and through a door at the top. Once inside, he pushes through some large black felt curtains into a dark space filled with loud music and people dancing. She feels overwhelmed by the proximity of other bodies. He leans close to her and explains that they need to get to the other side of the room, then takes her by the hand and pushes slowly through the dancing crowd. When they are halfway across, the music changes and the crowd erupts with cheers as some old disco track Grace vaguely recognises begins to play. A young man grabs her free hand and starts moving her around, dancing with her, smiling and reaching for her other hand, and she reluctantly slides it from Luke’s hold. In a sudden rush of euphoria, brought on by the drugs and the music and the mood in the room, she lets herself be swept away, dancing and smiling and watching him mouth the words, singing along to a chorus she’s amazed to discover she remembers. When the song ends and a new one begins, the boy drifts away into the mass of bodies and she turns around to see Luke standing there smiling at her.

  ‘Enjoying yourself?’ he says.

  ‘God, I haven’t danced in years!’ she says, exhilarated. ‘I used to love dancing.’

  On the other side of the dance floor, they emerge into an area with a bar and a queue for what she assumes must be the toilet. Luke waves to a girl behind the bar, who hands him a bottle of beer over the heads of those waiting to be served. He blows the girl a kiss before bounding up an uncarpeted wooden staircase. Grace follows. Upstairs, they enter a quiet lounge area, two sofas arranged around a low coffee table. The music’s insistent thud vibrates the floor beneath their feet.

  ‘Can I get you anything?’ he says.

  ‘I could murder a cup of tea,’ she says.

  ‘Coming right up,’ he says, disappearing into the kitchen. She sits down in one of the sofas, comforted by its softness, feeling much better for being somewhere quiet. She feels strangely euphoric and eager to chat; wide awake and stupidly happy.

  When he returns with the tea, she says, ‘So who owns this place?’

  He sits down on the other sofa and takes a swig of his beer. ‘It’s a squat, so no one owns it, or at least no one living here. There are about twelve here at the moment, I think. All artists. They throw amazing parties.’

  ‘Honestly, I’m fine here on my own if you want to go and enjoy yourself,’ she says, noticing his leg tapping to the music as it bleeds up through the floor.

  ‘I am enjoying myself. I can dance later. Do you still want me to call you a cab?’

  ‘I’m all right now, actually. I’m so sorry for overreacting like that. I’ve never taken drugs before.’

  ‘You ever taken Valium?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit like that, only better.’

  ‘I do feel much better. Thanks for looking after me.’

  ‘You didn’t have that much. You’ll be OK. If you want any more, just let me know.’

  ‘God, no, I mustn’t.’

  His big green eyes sparkle with mischief, and she has the sudden, inappropriate urge to kiss him. Watching him run a quick hand through his hair, she recalls a night with Pete long ago, a fragment from that other life. The flotsam of another ocean.

  THE TWO OF THEM had been lying on the sofa, enjoying a rare evening when they’d had her parents’ house to themselves. And as he lay with his head in her lap, she began to comb out his quiff with her fingers and weave tiny plaits. When she’d finished she told him to look in the mirror, and he did, both of them laughing at the dainty, girlish plaits sprouting from his head, accentuating the prettiness of his face, making him look feminine, she thought, his eyes suddenly conscious of their coquettish width and beauty.

  ‘YOU KNOW,’ she says, ‘you’re a dead ringer for my first husband.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Here, take a look at this.’ She removes her purse from her bag and hands him the photograph of Pete she’d found the other day. Stashing it there had made her feel slightly guilty, though now she feels no such emotion, only the quick, fierce need to be known.

  ‘Wow! It really does look like me,’ he says.

  ‘I could’ve eaten him on a butty!’ she says, and he laughs.

  ‘Have you ever loved someone and it became yourself?’

  ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Do you mind if I photograph it?’

  ‘Go ahead,’ she says, watching him position the photo on the coffee table and take a picture with his mobile phone. ‘He was a right bastard, though. Used to knock me around.’

  ‘Shit. I’m sorry. It must have freaked you the fuck out when you first saw me.’

  ‘Did it ever. Bloody hell…’ Brought it all flooding back, the fear and the love.

  Brought you here.

  ‘I thought you were a ghost. Either that, or I was doolally tap.’

  ‘I can imagine. But how do you get over a thing like that, losing someone you love?’

  ‘You don’t,’ says Grace, ‘not really. You just learn to live with it, which is a form of getting over it, I suppose.’

  You hold it like a pebble, worrying it away but keeping it warm at the same time. You get to like the smooth shape of it in your hand. It begins to comfort you.

  She tells him – she can’t help herself – all about seeing him outside the shop, at the bus stop, the pub, and the ponds with Given. He looks down occasionally at the snapshot. When she’s finished she feels panicky about divulging so much; cross with herself for blathering. ‘I must sound like a stalker.’

  Just then the door opens and Given enters, releasing into the room a short blast of music. ‘There you are!’ he says. ‘I’ve been looking for you.’ He sits down next to Luke and they exchange a kiss.

  Grace’s first instinct is to snatch the photograph up from the coffee table – for some reason she doesn’t want Given to see it – but before she can retrieve it he’s holding it up, saying, ‘What’s this? When was this taken?’

  ‘It’s not me, it’s Grace’s first husband.’

  ‘Fuck! It’s you, even down to the packet!’ He looks at it a few more seconds, before passing it over to Grace’s hovering hand.

  ‘Lucky you,’ he says as she snatches it. She wants to tear the thing to pieces now, but doesn’t for fear they’d think her insane. Instead, she stuffs it shamefully into her bag, not even bothering to put it back in her purse.

  Given removes a fold of paper from his pocket and unwraps it, tapping white powder on to a CD case lying on the table. ‘Want a line, Grace?’ he says and she declines. All these drugs, all these people on drugs, are making her anxious again.

  ‘Where’s Lind?’ Luke asks. ‘I thought she was with you.’

  ‘I dunno,’ Given says. ‘I thought she was with you.’

  ‘I haven’t seen her since we got here.’ Luke’s thumbs drum his thighs.

  ‘Don’t you want to dance? The music’s great.’

  ‘Nah. Maybe later.’

  Grace sips her tea, lights a cigarette, starting to feel an irrational and unspecified fear. The room seems to shudder, then settle. One look at Luke’s face, though, and all thoughts of leaving dissolve. He gives her a big, generous smile, before springing to his feet.

  ‘You OK here on your own while I go downstairs for a slash? I’ll be right back,’ he says, and is gone, in a flash. She looks at Given.

  ‘I’m going to make another cuppa. Do you want one?’

  ‘No, thanks.’

  He’s wary of her, she can tell, as she is of him. Her resistance to his charms is grating on him. He’s unsure what to make of this strange old woman who’s suddenly entered their lives. She stands and walks into the kitchen. As she’s filling the kettle she notices a toilet there, just off the kitchen, and wonders if Luke knew that. Surely he knew that? By the time she’s us
ed it the kettle has boiled, and as she is filling the mug she spies a small bottle of whisky by the tea caddy. Pops a shot into her tea. When she re-enters the living room, Given is still there. She’d hoped he might have gone by now.

  As she settles back into her seat, trying to think of something to say, he says, ‘I fucking loved your comment earlier: “It’s just wallpaper.” You should be an art critic.’ He laughs, and she isn’t sure what to make of it. She lets the whisky warm her as she wonders how much longer Luke is going to be, annoyed with him again, this time for leaving her with this man she just wishes would go away. ‘You don’t like modern art much, do you, Grace?’ he says.

  She wants to reply that it’s him, not modern art, that she doesn’t like, but instead she says, ‘I can’t say I really understand it.’ He laughs, and she adds, ‘It’s as if almost anything can be art if the artist says it is.’

  ‘But for an artist that is totally liberating. It frees you up to do anything. Exhibit a urinal; cover an island in fabric. Or use your own body. Whatever.’

  ‘I never thought of it that way.’

  ‘So art becomes more of an attitude or way of being, a way of seeing, rather than a thing to be exhibited; a process, more than a product to be sold.’

  ‘I’m a bit of a Philistine, I suppose.’

  ‘So you live on a boat in the same marina as Luke and Linden?’ It’s a rather obvious change of subject but she is grateful.

  ‘Yes. You own the boat they live on, don’t you?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Have you seen what they’ve done to it?’

  ‘No, but they told me about it. Sounds cool.’

  ‘It’s certainly very eye-catching! Though I think some of the other residents won’t be sorry to see it go.’

  ‘Linden tells me she’s going to paint you,’ he says.

  ‘Yes. We’ve done the photos, but she hasn’t had time to start the painting. You’ve kept her busy, I hear.’

  ‘She’s been a treasure getting the show.’

  ‘I really like Linden,’ she says.

  ‘So do I,’ he says, giving nothing away.

  ‘How’s it all going?’ she says, fixing her eyes on him.

  He nods slowly and says, ‘It’s going fine. You know – nothing serious.’

  ‘Oh? I got the impression from her that it was.’

  ‘It’s early days, you know.’

  She thinks she can see him start to squirm a bit, and in the grip of a sudden mischief she says, ‘And what about Luke?’

  ‘What about Luke?’ He is losing the charm now; the mask is slipping, and she can see his eyes start to darken and steel.

  ‘Well, doesn’t he deserve to know?’ she says, not nastily but firmly. ‘They both do. I think it’s wrong, what you’re doing. You shouldn’t play with people’s emotions like that.’

  ‘I think you should back off and mind your own business, Grace. It’s got nothing to do with you. That’s what I think.’

  He stands up quickly and for the briefest second she thinks he is going to hit her, and she flinches.

  ‘Don’t look so scared,’ he says. ‘You can be pretty fearless when you want to be. I’m going to go and find Lind. See you later.’ And he is gone.

  Grace lights a cigarette and wills Luke to return. She could, she realises, be waiting hours. She considers going out to look for him, but feels too intimidated, too out of sync with her surroundings, and decides the best thing to do is stay put.

  She stares at a large patch of yellow wallpaper on the wall opposite. She never saw a worse paper in her life. It is a smouldering, unclean yellow, with a recurrent spot where the pattern lolls like a broken neck and two bulbous eyes staring upside down. It has a kind of sub-pattern in a different shade; and she can make out a strange, provoking, formless sort of figure, which seems to skulk about behind the front design, like something viewed through the bars of a cage. The more she stares at it, the more she discerns that this figure is a woman, and that she is crawling around frantically, trying to escape from the pattern imprisoning her.

  Grace thinks about the life she’s leaving behind. This is all she can do, because to think about the future is to stare into an abyss. All those flat grey years after the breakdown, when her life became a box out of which she could not find her way, locked in a kind of numb grief that removed her from the world… The silence that grew between her and Gordon whenever they weren’t either with the boys or discussing them. And, once Paul and Jason left home, the absence in her head of anything to say to him. The solitude, but also the relief as, increasingly, she spent nights alone in front of the television. His face whenever she mentioned Hannah; his incapacity or unwillingness to talk about her.

  He belongs to another life now, a country to which she can’t return. He is a ghost now too. She lets a deep, sad regret take hold, for the love that never grew. She can’t imagine a future that would involve going back to him, but nor can she picture an alternative. She tries to conjure an image of what survival might look like, what form it might take, for her, here and now.

  She stands and makes her way into the kitchen to hunt down something to eat. A packet of crisps only clarts up her already dry mouth and she has to rinse them down with water. The fridge offers up a raspberry yoghurt, and she makes short shrift of that, enjoying the moist, sweet gulps. She makes another cup of whiskytea before settling back on the sofa, wishing she had the courage to leave, feeling like a fool. Her bones ache with tiredness but her mind is whirring at a rate of knots, snapping like an angry dog, berating her for her stupidity, her brainless, idiotic stupidity. Telling Luke all that stuff, and then mouthing off at Given. It’s Gordon’s voice she hears, but it could just as well be her father’s, or Pete’s. What were you thinking, woman? The last word spat like an insult.

  DAY EIGHT

  AROUND THREE AM, Grace succumbs to tiredness, pulled into a deep unconsciousness, dreaming she’s with Luke and Pete in a bedroom and they are kissing in front of her, ignoring her, or else not caring at all that she’s there. And she can feel – almost as if it’s real, she will recall later, the emotion remaining like a mood – a mixture of excitement and rejection, a sense of being excluded, together with the voyeuristic pleasure of watching the two men undress and start to fuck.

  She drifts slowly awake to an insistent worm of music that has eaten its way into her dream. Opens her eyes to find the seats surrounding her occupied by half a dozen strangers. A young man next to her says, ‘Hello,’ and she croaks a reply, checking with a quick finger to her chin that she hasn’t dribbled. Hopes she hadn’t been snoring, or talking in her sleep. She asks for some water and he passes her a bottle from the table and she blushes as her head fills with the memory of the dream – the sight of Pete fucking Luke – or was it Luke fucking Pete? Identical bodies entwined, locked into and on to each other. She looks around at all the drug-bright young faces and feels as if she’s just been exhumed. She asks the boy the time, taking in the tattoos – flowers and vines and leaves – sleeving his skinny arms. Buds and swallows. An anchor.

  He says, ‘It’s half-five. Who did you come with?’ and, when she tells him, a girl with red dreadlocks and a ring through her lip looks up from rolling a joint and says,

  ‘I’m pretty sure they left a while ago. Do you have their numbers?’

  ‘I think I’ll just go.’

  An open-mouthed yawn takes her by surprise, and she slaps a hand across her mouth and says, ‘Excuse me.’ The boy offers to ring her a cab and she tells him where she needs to get to. She wants her bed and the comfort of its solitude. What the hell happened to Luke?

  ‘I’ll walk you out,’ he says.

  She says goodbye to the room and follows him down and outside into an early chill, and she shudders, pulling the pashmina around her. They walk through the tented forecourt, past sofas littered with sleeping bodies, the floor a storm of empty bottles and cans she’s careful not to kick. Everything is silent now but for the ringing in her ear
s. Her mouth is pinched with dryness.

  It is a cloudless blue-skied new day, and she remembers with a panic that she’s supposed to leave for Manchester in a couple of hours. Before Gordon gets back. But all she wants to do is sleep.

  As they’re waiting for the cab, a green VW camper van pulls up with Luke in the driving seat.

  ‘Grace, get in!’ he shouts through the open window. ‘I’ll give you a lift.’

  ‘No, it’s OK, thanks, there’s a cab coming,’ she says, looking at the boy, avoiding Luke’s gaze. She’s hurt and angry with him for leaving her alone.

  ‘It’s all right,’ the boy says, ‘I can cancel it, or someone else can take it. It’s not a problem.’

  ‘Come on. Don’t waste money on a cab.’

  With a face like thunder, she climbs into the passenger seat and straps in. As Luke revs the van into motion she turns to wave but the boy has gone.

  ‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ she says to Luke, ‘leaving me sitting there like piffy on a rock bun.’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Grace,’ he says, and then she notices he’s crying.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Fucking Given!’

  ‘What happened?’

  He smashes his fists against the steering wheel and lets out a yelp of pain.

  ‘Look!’ He turns to face her, revealing a right eye all bloody and swollen and a split lip. ‘He fuckin’ hit me!’ The last two words come out in high-pitched disbelief.

  ‘Bloody hell, are you all right?’